At last, deep in the woods, Tom slackened speed, for the road had “petered out.” But he could see that where it ceased to be a road it had become a trail that wound its uneven way among the trees. It was barely wide enough for the car to pass along, and here and there in the road were fragments of stumps that made traveling precarious.
“Gee, Tom, you’ll have to go slow here,” declared Ned.
“We don’t want to break our necks,” added Jackson.
“We’ll do the best we can,” answered the young inventor. “But if either of you wants to get out and walk——”
“Nothing doing, Tom!” cried his financial manager quickly. “If you stick, so do I.”
“Same here,” added the shop foreman.
On and on they rushed. Once they hit a big rock and for the moment it looked as if the machine would surely go over. Ned and Jackson held their breath. Maybe one or the other thought the next minute would be his last.
But Tom was a skilled driver, and with almost miraculous deftness he piloted the car at as fast a rate as he dared. He could not take his eyes from the road, but Ned scanned the woods on one side and Jackson on the other for any sign of the hapless airman.
They had gone perhaps half a mile when a shout came from the lips of Jackson.
“The woods are afire!” he cried, as he pointed ahead of them.